: : : Paul And the X-Files : : :

Nothing can prepare you for a visitation from another world.

It happens like this:

Late at night. Or very early morning. You are all alone. You are out driving down some lonely desert road at 3:00 a.m. It is so quiet and very dark... Unaccountably, your vehicle stops all by itself. The radio is dead, or worse, comes on all by itself. Then out of nowhere a flickering light all around you. Inexplicably you feel a growing sense of terror. The light comes closer...

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have both been there. Fox is the believer, the one who lives with a terrible understanding since his whole vision of reality was irrevocably changed the day his sister was abducted. Scully is the scientist, the skeptic, the one who believes in rules and order and the stability of the laws of science. Mulder and Scully are the two sides of ourselves, materialist-magicians, people who try to live each day with contradictions that lie buried just beneath the shell of our smiles. Just what kind of world do we live in, really?

Every night we try to sleep with unanswered questions. What is real? Who am I? Where do I fit into the grand scheme? And most importantly: just who is actually in charge of things?

One encounter can change your life forever. One terrifying touch from another world can transform you forever into a believer. All the cynicism, skepticism and rationalizations melt away in that one awful moment when your carefully-constructed view of reality is shattered by the devastation of an Appearance.

Regardless of who you are, it can happen to you. We live in a world where the very definitions of reality change like a movie script revision. Nothing is what it seems. Whatever else you remember, remember this: some things are real but not true.

Long ago, a man with his own life and agenda had the one terrifying encounter he never expected. It did not happen like the others you have heard about. It was on a busy road, at high noon, in bright daylight and surrounded by friends equally unbelieving and equally unprepared. And unlike other X-Files this encounter was both real and true. Saul the cynic, Saul the skeptic, Saul the man with murderous intention to eliminate the threat to his nation's security and carefully-constructed belief system was stopped dead in his tracks when he least expected it. There on the Damascus road something happened to him of such shock and consequence that it changed forever everything he had ever known and believed. In one terrifying moment, he found out who he was, where he was really going and most shocking of all, Who is really in charge of things in the Universe. (Acts 9:22,26)

The others saw it too. This was no hallucination, no dream. This was no empty desert road in the wee hours of the morning. This was not the predictable result of a prolonged search to establish the truth of something you already believe is true. This was no hypnotic regression recollection. The witnesses would never forget what happened. Light all around them, brighter than the noonday sun. Terror that took all their strength and turned the iron of their arrogance into water on the ground. They saw it all right. It was real, and it was true. And even more terrifying, they heard. "Get up. Go to Damascus. There I will show you what you are to do."

The other eyewitnesses didn't hear all that Saul heard. The Voice that spoke first to him that day and told him what he was to do for the rest of forever had something private and personal to say to him, something for him alone. The Voice spoke in his own language and called him by name. The Owner of that Voice had watched him and known him for a long, long time.

If you make the choice to listen, that same Voice has something unique to say to you. The Owner of that Voice has watched and known you, too. We are not alone. Unlike Scully and Mulder you don't need a dark night and a mystery. All you need is your own lonely road and a hunger to know what is really real.

"Who are you?"

"I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting."

"Lord - what do you want me to do?"

The Truth is up there.

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